March is Red Cross Month.

That’s right. We have our very own month. Starting with Franklin D Roosevelt in 1943, every sitting President has proclaimed March as Red Cross Month.

What does this mean for you?
March is Red Cross Month is a time to celebrate your great support. Thank you for your generous gifts. You have positively changed people’s lives.

This is also the time, as FDR so eloquently suggested, for Americans to

“rededicate themselves to the splendid aims and activities of the Red Cross.”

We humbly offer a few ways you can do just that.

• Call your local chapter and find out how you can get involved today.
• Find a local blood drive and donate.
• Join us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and LinkedIn
• Right click, save as those sample avatars at the top of this post and use them during March on FB, Twitter, and wherever else you like. Want to make different avatars for us? Go for it! We’d love to see them – leave links to them in the comments of this post.

Blogger nicholshuffles wrote a recent entry recounting a random encounter her CPR-trained friend had with a couple in need. Emphasis is mine:

Last Saturday, a friend of mine was cycling along the Summerland coast when he saw a man pull his car over, get out, and frantically try to wake up his unconscious wife. My friend, Chris, put that Red Cross CPR training that we all have and never use, (I get to push drugs and jolt with joules which is quite a bit of fun and less messy), and kept the woman alive until paramedics arrived to whisk her away to Cottage Hospital. Once at Cottage she was put on ice, literally, because chilling the brain to 92 degrees helps to prevent permanent, anoxic, neurological damage in those suffering a heart attack. She remained in the ICU for several days and was transferred today to the telemetry floor. I stopped by her room to visit per Chris’ request and because I like to make a point of looking after people incarcerated on my floor of the hospital, especially when they are a friend or family member of somebody in my life.

The woman’s husband was emotional, having been worn down watching the ordeal that his wife has been through. Every time that the name, “Chris” touched his lips, tears rolled from his eyes unbidden. I saw disbelief and wonderment in those eyes. He was so surprised that somebody would take the time to keep his wife of fifty years alive that I was embarrassed to be a part of a world where the possibility of not stopping to restart a heart was an option.

You can be prepared for a situation like this by getting trained in CPR through the Red Cross – you never know when you will be able to help someone in need.

Here at National Headquarters in Washington, DC, we shattered the all-time record for snowiest winter yesterday afternoon. The long-held record was set in 1899.

Of course the storm and cold weather aren’t affecting just DC. We had 32 shelters open last night in Florida, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia.

We’d love to see your snow photos. Just add them to our Flickr pool.

We want you to have fun and stay safe during this unusual winter. Please check out our winter storm tip sheet [pdf].

Red Cross worker Winnie Romeril noticed recently that a lot of Haitians on the street were carrying our Red Cross eton emergency crank radios. These radios, which were being handed out by a local radio station, can by powered by cranking a handle that stores energy in a battery. Some of the models out there can even store solar power.

Currently, about 20 radio stations are back up and running post-earthquake in Haiti. These radio stations can communicate important information about relief to a massively displaced population.

When you are thinking about what to put in an emergency preparedness kit, consider including a radio – it could make a difference by keeping you and your family connected to immediate sources of information when your usual options are out.

Don’t worry, the action items for this week are easier to do than it is to say!

• Get both H1N1 and seasonal flu vaccine.  Find the nearest one in the flu locator
• Send an ecard to a loved one to encourage them to get vaccinated
• Join us at 2:15 today to ask our Chief Nurse Sharon Stanley any questions you have about flu vaccines

CPR.

It’s never too early to be prepared. Check out all these babies saving their dolls’ lives!

Are you trained? Our chapters offer courses to learn how to give infant and child CPR and much more.

>> Real life kids saving kids story

Baby CPR from Kate on Vimeo.

As 2009 and “the double ohs” decade closed, many reflected on our world’s progress in the last year. While browsing my Popular Science Magazine listserv around NYE*, I was blown away by 2009’s incredible offerings of science, technology and more. So, for Red Cross blog readers near and far, I now give you my prepare-aphernalia wish list for the Red Cross!

Disasters
-Israeli scientists have created a cell phone tower system that hones flood predictability down to an hour prior to its impact.
- Survivor Buddy, a Texas A & M University invention, seeks out and communicates between survivors and search and rescue workers!
- Bristol Uniforms, a UK company, has created a fireproof uniform that is 30 percent lighter than its US counterparts, allowing for breathability, comfort and fire protection.

First Aid and Cardiac Emergencies
- SAM Medical’s Celox Trauma Gauze will seal gashes and cool burns simultaneously by absorbing 16 times its weight in blood and, once applied to water, evaporates into a gel that cools wounds for up to 20 hours. (This may be the best “just-add-water” invention since Instant Snow…a nice holiday gift for those in tropical environs.)
- 3M/Littman has created the Electronic Stethescope in combination with Zargis Cadioscan. By amplifying heart beats and recognizing abnormalities in heart murmurs, this stethoscope literally never misses a beat! Once it detects the lubs and dubs of your heart, the device transmits the information to the doctor by Bluetooth and a near real-time graph on PC screens!

Flu Pandemics
-For those aware of the germs among us, Purleve’s Hygienic Door Knob has a self-cleaning design that brings you comfort in bacteria-laden places such as public restrooms.
-Filligent Limited has created the BioMask, an unprecedented flu-killing device. While normal masks can allow up to 50,000 flu bugs to live, the BioMask’s technology eliminates 99.9 percent of cooties within a minute of contact! Not sold yet? Well, for penny-pinchers, the mask’s virus elimination makes it a reusable resource!

Well, that’s my list. If only we had unlimited funds to purchase these magnificent inventions! Red Cross services can always be improved through generous donations however -a gift that is much appreciated. Happy holidays and best of luck in the new decade!

Information courtesy of popsci.com; graphic courtesy of wired.com

*Since when did this New Year’s Eve abbreviation pop up? NYE will always mean Bill Nye to me.

As we close down the year (and some say the decade) we are eagerly anticipating the future and all the ways technology will enhance our ability to fulfill the mission of the American Red Cross.

But…

Tradition tells us we should reflect a bit on our past, so here are the 10 blog posts from this humble site that you all visited the most this year:

1. Fort Hood Shootings: The tragic events of this day led many of you to this post. We wanted to make sure you had the most updated information about where to donate blood and how to use our Safe & Well site and you all made the post a community of sharing.
2. Holiday Mail for Heroes: Well, we’ve heard you loud and clear. You really like this program where you can send holiday cards directly to service members, their families, and veterans. We love being able to connect you all together in this way and we’re looking for more ways to do it even better in the future.
3. Target’s Bullseye Gives Facebook Contest: Thank you for visiting this post in droves and activating your networks to vote for us on Facebook. Your kind votes won $792,000 for our mission.
4. Bites for Blood: Fans of True Blood got together to create this site. HBO found it and pledged $10,000 if you all got 500,000 virtual bites from True Blood characters. And you did it.
5. CPR LOLs: You can’t get enough of the LOLCat CPR.
6. American Samoa Relief Efforts: The earthquake and subsequent tsunami that hit Samoa earlier this year had you all clicking to find out how you can help. You are extraordinary in times of disaster.
7. 6 Degrees of Red Cross: We played a little of the Kevin Bacon inspired game with you all. Actually, we’re always playing this game, so click through and let us know your connection.
8. I Saved a Whole Cat: This triple blood donor did some feline math to measure his contributions this year – and you guys loved it.
9. Vaccine Questions? We’ve Got Answers: H1N1 (swine flu) was a big topic this year and we’re so thankful that you all trusted us and our Chief Nurse Sharron Stanley to guide you through the sometimes confusing pandemic.
10. Home Fires Map: The daily work of the American Red Cross is astounding. We respond to an average of 200 home fires every single day across the country. So we mapped all of them to give you an idea of their magnitude.

Honorable Mentions

• We are so thankful to Robin Parker from the Oregon Trail Chapter for her timely and informative Weekly Worldwide Wrap-up that has kept us in the know throughout 2009.
• We are proud to have launched Cross the Globe podcast headed up by our own Mat Morgan.
• We welcomed the insights of our President and CEO Gail McGovern to the blog.
• Twitter was a big part of our collective lives.

Thanks for reading in 2009 and let us know what you’d like to see in 2010!

Remember to follow the Winter Safety Checklist (PDF) to make sure that a storm won’t catch you unprepared!

Stay warm, everyone, and enjoy this slideshow of photos from the DC area that people have been tagging #snOMG – it’s pretty rare for us DC-ers to see so much snow!

>> Get Trained